{"id":380,"date":"2007-11-23T08:05:27","date_gmt":"2007-11-23T13:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cavanaghwilliams.com\/blawg\/?p=380"},"modified":"2007-11-23T08:05:27","modified_gmt":"2007-11-23T13:05:27","slug":"osborne-report-on-civil-justice-reform-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/?p=380","title":{"rendered":"Osborne Report on Civil Justice Reform Released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Associate Chief Justice Coulter Osborne has released his Civil Justice Reform Project. He is scheduled to address the Montebello Civil Litigation Conference tomorrow and the Attorney-General is to speak at the conference today.<\/p>\n<p>The report can be viewed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca\/english\/about\/pubs\/cjrp\/CJRP-Report_EN.pdf\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the key proposals:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>increasing Small Claims Court jurisdiction from $10,000 to $25,000;<\/li>\n<li>increasing Simplified Rules jurisdiction from $50,000 to $100,000;<\/li>\n<li>a right to have up to two hours of discovery in simplified rules cases;<\/li>\n<li>a call for the appointment of more Superior Court judges, particularly in certain regions of the province;<\/li>\n<li>amend rule 20 to permit judges hearing summary judgment motions to weigh evidence and evaluate credibility;<\/li>\n<li>amend rule 20 to permit judges to order &#8220;mini-trials&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>study needs generated by self-represented litigants;<\/li>\n<li>no juries in Simplified Rules cases without a court order;<\/li>\n<li>replace the &#8220;semblance of relevance&#8221; test for discovery with one of simple relevance;<\/li>\n<li>limit discovery of an adverse party to seven hours. More time could be obtained on consent or by court order;<\/li>\n<li>encourage parties to meet to agree on various discovery issues;<\/li>\n<li>measures to encourage objectivity on the part of expert witnesses and agreement, where possible, among experts;<\/li>\n<li>take steps to ensure an adequate complement of case management masters in Ottawa;<\/li>\n<li>allow pre-trial judges to preside at trial, where the parties consent;<\/li>\n<li>only orders finally disposing of an action would be appealable to the Court of Appeal, with all other orders being appealed to the Divisional Court;<\/li>\n<li>enforce time limits at trials more strictly;<\/li>\n<li>zero tolerance of incivility;<\/li>\n<li>introduction of &#8220;proportionality&#8221; as an overarching principle governing costs;<\/li>\n<li>a requirement that counsel prepare a litigation budget and review it with the client prior to commencing or defending a proceeding.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Associate Chief Justice Coulter Osborne has released his Civil Justice Reform Project. He is scheduled to address the Montebello Civil Litigation Conference tomorrow and the Attorney-General is to speak at the conference today. The report can be viewed here. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/?p=380\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practice-and-procedure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}